Treading Over Thorns
by fatalis-stille
Summary: [akabane x ban] Sequel to Stillness and Silence. Waking up to find that things are suddenly different is bloody unsettling for everybody involved.


Disclaimer : Don't own get backers

Warnings : Yaoi. No likey, no read-y. It's that simple darlings.

Notes : The continuation to Stillness and Silence. I think. I hope that I am not so out of practice that I do not do justice to the former fic.

Part One

Waking

Morning sunlight.

Sometimes, he thought God created it just to annoy the hell out of him whenever he wanted to.

Mumbling to himself, he grabbed his glasses from the bedside table while he tried to valiantly prop himself over the dozens of pillows splayed haphazardly across their bed. He failed and sunk into the comfy cushion once more, savoring the cocoon of heat his body had created the night before. Akabane told him he somebody could probably kill him in his sleep using one of those, and he had retorted without thinking "somebody like you?"

He got a smirk in return for that sally, but surprisingly it had not been returned. Come to think about it, he was a little thankful it had not been returned. The answer would have proved too disturbing on his part.

Maybe half an hour had passed before he decided that maybe getting up was an option that he must really consider at the moment, and tried with more success to get himself off of the bed. His legs wobbled a bit as he tried to find his balance, and his vision blurred and flickered for a second, but soon he was up and going towards the bathroom.

He found Akabane brushing his teeth in front of the mirror, head looking down at the sink and hair still wet and glistening from his apparent recent shower. Light hit his body in a way that he found amusing, creating highlights on the already creamy skin that were almost painful to look at.

He could almost not see the scars at this point. Only blinding white everywhere.

He approached the other and let his chin fall listlessly on the other's shoulder, his neck lolling listlessly as he maneuvered his hands around Akabane's body to get to his own toothbrush. In, out, in, out. He could feel the other's chest contracting and expanding with each breath he took, almost fragile encased in a ribcage he had broken quite a few times already in numerous places.

He was reminded once more of the other's scars, scars that others had put, scars that he had acquired by accident, scars from the knives that inevitably shot out of his body to protect him, and of course, the scars that he himself had placed there. So many that he couldn't count them all.

So many that he shivered at the thought of them.

As if by coincidence, his fingers brush over on right across his collarbone, a small one compared to all the others, but a deep one nonetheless. That one he remembered. They had been fighting that night when he had given it to Akabane, fighting about something that he couldn't quite remember right now. He had been angry, the other had been pissed. They had learned that that was never a good combination for both of them, and he had entered the Honky Tonk barely breathing and covered in his and Akabane's blood.

He had received a scar from that time too. The scar was…

Wet fingers reached up and encircled his throat, caressing the puckered skin he kept hidden beneath his hair.

It seemed he wasn't the only one who remembered.

"Past things are dead things, Mido Ban."

Lavender eyes were regarding him almost drunkenly from beneath the curtain of jet black hair, but he knew they were anything but inebriated.

They just knew more than they were willing to let on.

"And dead things are useless things." He replied back. The other just nodded and went back to brushing his teeth.

Ginji nearly jumped with glee as the clock struck 6 pm.

* * *

"Yay! We can finally get paid now! YIPEE!" He did his little dance as he celebrated to himself on top of the counter, clapping his hands as he counted off the list of things he wanted to eat with his money. Natsumi couldn't help but laugh along with him as she watched him make a fool of himself.

Sitting hunched before the counter, he inhaled from his cigarette and waited for the cash to be placed in front of him. The moment it hit the space before him, his arms snaked out of his pocket in the blink of an eye, taking along with it the money and hiding in his polo as if to burrow with a long waited for prize.

He got up and started walking towards the door.

"Aren't you going to stay for Natsumi's treat, Ban-chan?" His partner's eerily distant voice floated behind him, questioning his retreating back.

"Mada, mada. Not today I think. Maybe some other time."

If he had wanted to say more, it was cut off by the tinkling of the restaurant's bell, signaling his departure from the premises with its light breezy clinking.

A curious silence enveloped the people he had left behind.

"Ban has been acting pretty distant lately, don't you think?" Hevn was the first to speak.

"Yes. He's been that way for the past couple of weeks already. I wonder if anythings wrong…"

Another silence, but different from the first. It was Ginji this time who broke it.

"Nothings wrong with Ban-chan, everybody. He is just…thinking."

That earned a surprised look from everybody.

"Thinking?"

Ginji smiled.

"Even the most intelligent people don't have all the answers."

Nobody asked anything else after Ginji said that. The microwave beeped shortly after, announcing their newly heated pizza, and soon they were all discussing the latest mission among themselves.

* * *

"You seem different, Akabane-san"

He let the body of an anonymous henchman slip from his grasp as Kagami approached him, smiling the way he always did whenever he came in contact with him.

"Different?" He let his muscles relax in time with the sound of Kagami's footsteps. "How so Kagami-kun?" The knives disappeared without a trace as he turned to face his adversary, strangely uninterested at the prospect of trying to cut him up in little pieces. He knew somewhere in his mind that adrenaline should be rushing throughout his body, but it wasn't and it bothered him slightly to know that things had changed somewhat.

He didn't understand what had changed, but most surely, something was not the same.

"You're quite removed from your kills today, or maybe it's just my imagination."

He flipped his hair and fixed his gloves, trying to ignore the slight clamoring in his brain. Is it that obvious?

"I've gotten bored of the henchman Kagami-kun. They're so typical it's almost no fun killing them these days."

A knowing smirk spread across Kagami's features.

"Is that so?"

He turned his heel, getting ready to make his exit. The other's questions were bothering him endlessly, and this irritated him even more.

The questions were giving him a migraine.

Effortlessly, he jumped out of the window, and landed perfectly still on the street in front. He didn't need to look back to know that Kagami was watching him silently from the window, smirk still on his face as if he were watching the most amusing of games.

"More interesting things are happening outside of Mugenjou, I see."

* * *

Author's Note:

Because I felt like it one day. Am trying not to compare it to the surprising success of the prequel. The reviews for that one still blow me away. lol As always,

Review review revieeeeew!

fatalis


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